Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

I am a big fan of Uptake.com (even when it was Kango.com).  I especially like the idea of consolidating information from many sources and bringing it together into one unified interface.  About two months ago, I saw a little button at the bottom of their detail pages.  I ignored it at first, but after seeing it again a couple days later I clicked it just to see what it was.  It was a button for Travelmuse.com.  I dutifully signed up for an account and completed the bookmarking process.  The experience was not altogether dissimilar from Travelbookmarking.com, which I reveiwed some time ago, but the execution is different in one very important way; when you complete the bookmarking process, Travelmuse.com returns you back to the originating site.  This means you never lose context, which is so important when you are clicking around the web.

Travelmuse.com has been in development for just over a year (May 2007) but they quite cleverly disguised what they were doing by leading users (and industry insiders) to believe that they were just another content provider.  In fact, what they were doing (so it would appear) is working on their Travelmuse Plan-It Widget which allows other content providers to add Travelmuse’s trip planning and itinerary functionality without any additional cost.  The benefit to the content provider is that there is more opportunity for the traveler to share the content they have found with their friends and fellow travellers.  The benefit to Travelmuse is that it increases the scope of the content supported by Travelmuse and adds a viral nature to their site.

From what I can find, Uptake.com is the first of many larger consumer sites to add the Travelmuse widget (albeit rather subtely).  Given Uptake.com is a content metasearch engine that doesn’t generate revenue from selling any particular provider’s products, the idea of adding a travel itinerary function makes sense.  This may not be such a good idea for vendors or suppliers who have already invested the time and resources to build out their dynamic packaging functionality.  The reason I like the functionality so much is because provides the consumer with the ability to bookmark content from multiple providers and websites.  Most dynamic packaging engines are developed in order to provide access and booking of specific brands or featured suppliers.  Travelmuse works across the Dream, Plan, and Booking phases of the travel lifecycle and,  given the sharing capabilities of the bookmarks, it even overlaps into the Reminisce phase as well.

I think Travelmuse would do well to partner with content providers like WikiTravel.org and World66.com or even the professionally written destination and world wide travel guides like Lonelyplanet, World Travel Guide, Frommers, or Rough Guides.   I suppose we’ll wait to see who jumps on with the widget, but I for one would recommend all small operators, destinations, and suppliers to add social bookmarking (like Travelmuse.com) to their sites.

My only concern and potential barrier to pick-up for the widget is that Travelmuse sells travel through their own site.  Granted, they have partnered with World Choice Travel (Travelocity subsidiary) and are using their white label booking engine (look for go.travelpn.com in url when booking), there may be some hesitation from other content sites to install the widget or partner if there is a fear that they may lose the booking to Travelmuse.  I understand that there needs to be a revenue model in place for the long term growth of the company, so I would be curious to know how Travelmuse plans to address this concern.

If you have used Travelmuse for planning or if you are a content site who has implemented the widget, I would be interested to know what your experience has been.